


Ghosts in the Fog

by iwtv



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, a ghost story without ghosts, return to skeleton island, silverflint angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-30 00:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10865529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwtv/pseuds/iwtv
Summary: Perhaps, for all their bonding and for all his perception into John Silver, James had never truly understood That Kind of darkness. He choked on the bitter laugh that bubbled up from inside him. John Silver had broke his fucking heart.Thomas was there, hands on his shoulders. And when James looked up at him and met those sapphire eyes it dulled the pain as it always did. His lord, returned to him. His lord, even after all this time, could never be touched by such darkness.Had Silver grasped how much James loved Thomas? Had he an inkling?





	Ghosts in the Fog

The river’s channel was as deep as he remembered. When they finally set foot ashore he half expected to see a plethora of boot prints in the sand, running every which way. He tried to ignore the sounds that memory dragged out of his head: The pirates who had made those boot prints, yelling and trying desperately to get out of the water, the sound of repeated gunshots, the smack of bullets in the water. Billy Bones’s battered face. John Silver’s voice. 

Of course the water had erased those fragile artifacts over a year ago. 

Thomas stepped up beside him. 

“How long to reach it?” he asked. 

“It took Dooley and I roughly four hours toting a heavy chest between us. I would say half that time, or thereabouts.” 

Thomas nodded. He’d grown unusually quiet. That was his own fault, James knew. He had tried not to let the idea of Skeleton Island take root in his mind. His own words to Dooley about how the island could play tricks on a man’s mind came back to him. Funny how it was harder to believe when you were the one with ghosts to worry about. 

He’d told Thomas the majority of what had transpired on the island and of the chest. He was confident in his ability to find it with little difficulty. Assuming it was still there. However even though he’d left out parts of his story—the more intimate moments with Silver—the rest of his tale Thomas had still found chilling and he knew his partner and lover understood this place had left its mark on him. 

So it had. 

They began their journey north and towards the center of the island. Perhaps the weather was to blame for his unfounded unease. It was much the same today as it had been that day a year and a half ago; patches of fog scattered everywhere and indistinguishable from the mist that was also prevalent due to the constant rain. The air was cold and damp. 

Thomas had questioned this expedition more than once, even before James had told him what had happened here. What if the navy were close by? What if pirates were? And did they really need the money from the chest? Surely they could find more labor for a short while to lessen the strain on their finances. 

But finding good work when both of you were branded criminals in both the New World and Old was no easy task. James was as worried about someone recognizing Thomas as Thomas was of someone recognizing Captain Flint. 

And so here they were. 

The terrain was hilly, with several stretches of uphill climbs that left both of them panting by midday. They stopped and ate from the satchel Thomas carried over his shoulder. James looked around him as he had done all day, trying to decide if he remembered this piece of land. There had been a few landmarks but mostly it all looked the same. How easy it would be to get lost, to be walking around in circles for hours before realizing it. He had heard his fair share of sailors becoming lost on jungle islands who were found dead later, usually starved to death. He had thought little of the stories at the time. They had been uttered in the safe and warm insides of inns and taverns by half-drunk men who were looking to impress their audience with exaggerated claims. 

Now, however, James could understand how easy it would be to lose one’s way in a place such as this. Luckily he knew they had not been going in circles at least; everything continued to look new. 

They passed through a small clearing with a few very tall and bare tree trunks. The soil was dark and there were ferns. Suddenly he heard the clashing of swords and saw Joji, swift and silent. Joji, who had been on his crew since almost the beginning, who barely spoke, save to curse in his native tongue or to bargain in Nassau Town. He had been an excellent crewman. James had never faulted him for attacking that day. It was James, after all, who had discreetly left his ship and his crew to hide the chest. It was he who had abandoned everything and everyone in those fateful few hours. 

Of course Joji was not really there because he had killed Joji. 

Taking the chest had seemed like the right thing to do. He had thought it out, planned out Silver’s reaction even. He had not thought much of the crew, or how he was forcing them against him. Now, as they walked through the clearing and he imagined scattered, chaotic footprints in the dirt from two men fighting for their lives, he realized how absurd it seemed to have forced everyone against him. Of course Joji had attacked him. 

All he had been thinking about was Silver. 

Joji had been a good crewman and one hell of a fighter. James silently begged his forgiveness, then cast his mind back to navigating their path. If he wasn’t careful he would be begging the forgiveness of all those he had cut down and they would be here for months. 

They paused again when the terrain began to give way to sharp boulders jutting out of the ground. Now this area James did recognize. Along with the familiarity came the voice, unwanted and unbidden but there just the same: 

_But beneath all of that, I recognized the other thing hiding in the spaces. The one whose shape you first showed me. And when asked, it was honest about the role it wanted to play. It was rage. And it just wanted to see the world burn._

James closed his eyes. John had been right, of course. He knew James well enough. But even as Silver had spoke about Madi and a life of peace and all the things James had wanted for himself and his loved ones, James knew Silver well enough too. And he had tried, hadn’t he? Tried to warn Silver about his own Self and his darker impulses. And yet he had spoken about freedom and discovery in the dark, hadn’t he? Silver had seen past the surface of those words as James had hoped he would, but did he know that James had been speaking about the very man who walked beside him now? That freedom and discovery for James had meant a truly happy, though all too brief, life? 

James paused and leaned against a tree. The air felt insufferably heavy and thick and miserable. God, how had everything gone so wrong? Why the fuck couldn’t he and Silver just _let go of it all_ and attempted to be happy? Because neither one of them remembered what happiness was like? Because John had never known? 

The old ache returned, starting in his chest and sinking into his bones whenever he thought of Silver like this, about what the man might have endured before they had ever met. How he wished to God John had told him about his past those days on that bluff, that James could come to understand him the way he’d allowed himself to be understood by John. 

Perhaps, for all their bonding and for all his perception into John Silver, James had never truly understood That Kind of darkness. He choked on the bitter laugh that bubbled up from inside him. John Silver had broke his fucking heart. 

Thomas was there, hands on his shoulders. And when James looked up at him and met those sapphire eyes it dulled the pain as it always did. His lord, returned to him. His lord, even after all this time, could never be touched by such darkness. 

Had Silver grasped how much James loved Thomas? Had he an inkling? 

“I’m all right,” James said quietly. “It’s just this place.” 

“The memories?” Thomas guessed, still holding onto him as James pushed himself off the tree. James nodded. Thomas looked around them, up to where dappled sunlight had begun to peek through the canopy, breaking up some of the gloom. 

“Yes, I think I can understand,” he said. “I feel oddly unsettled here. Perhaps it’s just the weather.” 

James gave him a lop-sided smile at the echo of his own thoughts. He felt a little better as they continued on, until at last James saw the giant rocky outcropping and the gaping black mouth of the cave ahead in the distance. He recognized it instantly. The soil turned sandy beneath their feet. 

“Here,” said James, standing over the widest part of the narrow path of sand that led into the cave, which itself was only about twenty feet deep. He swung the shovel he’d brought off his shoulder. Thomas did the same and they began digging. James’s earlier fears crawled up into his gullet. What if someone had found it? Dug it up and then smoothed over the spot so it appeared untouched? 

The questions held no water. Who on earth could have known it was here? The only other person who knew of this spot had been Dooley, and he had been killed. By James. 

James winced at the memory, chest aching again. He had not even hesitated to pull the trigger, not when John had been about to die. Another loyal crewman dead by his own hands. And he would do it again in a heartbeat, he knew. 

He pushed away the thoughts. The island seemed to be pulling all the morbidity out of him, willing his mind to ponder on his misdeeds from that day. He steeled himself, shovel digging hard into the sandy soil. Who fucking cared? Those deaths shouldn’t matter anymore. Thomas was alive. And furthermore, if he had it to do over again, he would’ve put a bullet in Peter Ashe’s head and Colonel Rhett’s head that day in Charlestown as well, before Rhett had done the same to Miranda. 

Their shovels struck something hard. James sighed in relief. They dug around the object until they could pull it out. 

“My god it’s heavy!” grunted Thomas as the chest stubbornly refused to be uprooted, until at last it gave way all at once, causing both of them to stumble. They drug it out. A quick inspection showed the heavy lock had not been tampered with. 

James startled when thunder boomed above them. The sky had gone dark again and the wind had picked up. 

“It was clear only a few minutes ago I swear,” muttered Thomas, brows furrowed. 

“It’s this place,” James said with a deep frown. “Come on. Let’s pull it inside.” 

They lugged the chest inside the cave. Minutes later the skies opened up in a torrential downpour. They would have to wait until it subsided to begin the journey back. 

They ate a small amount of some bacon and split a biscuit, settling down against the wall of the cave. A silence stretched between them until James felt Thomas’s knuckles gently brush his cheek. He turned to look at him. Thomas was watching him with a sorrowful gaze. 

“This place is not good for you,” he said softly. “You are wearing that same expression I spent so long dispelling from your face after we found each other again.” 

“I know. I’m sorry,” said James. “The feeling will leave once we’re away from here. I promise.” 

He bent over and kissed Thomas beside his eye, feeling the crinkles there against his lip. Thomas turned and kissed him on the mouth. His hand settled on James’s chest, fingers sliding inside his shirt. 

“Can I help?” he whispered. 

They fucked inside the cave, using James’s long coat as a blanket over the sand. James let Thomas dominate him and as always Thomas seemed to sense what he needed. He built them up to a steady rhythm. James let the bliss wash over him, closing his eyes and letting Thomas hold his arms over his head as Thomas filled him. To hell with this place. He opened his eyes and watched Thomas over him, his cheeks flushed and a lovely sheen of sweat on his forehead. 

James had loved Silver and Silver had loved him. He wanted to hate him but could not. Even though the ache of his betrayal would never go away, James felt more and more assured of these simple facts. He had told Thomas about Silver and Thomas, of course, still loved him. He could love and be loved again and what’s more, Silver had shown him that even as Flint, he could love. 

Perhaps, then, that had been Silver’s greatest gift to him, the rebirth of James McGraw. 

James felt profoundly grateful, though not to Silver in particular. To whom or what exactly he wasn’t sure. He opened his eyes and pulled Thomas close to him, wrapping his ankles around Thomas’s bare back. They panted into each other’s mouths until they breathed in unison. Thomas rolled in and out of him deeper and deeper, until James was moaning and ready to scream Thomas’s name. 

By the time they had dressed again the rain had lessened to a drizzle. The way back would be muddy and fraught with chances to slip and fall but the skies still threatened to drench them so James decided they had best head back to the ship now or risk being stuck here through the night. 

They made it back to the beach with little incident. Though the weather was still miserable and they were both cold and damp James’s spirits were lifted. Even in this accursed place Thomas could work his magic on him. He didn’t know if it was their love-making or Thomas’s simple touches or even his own final thoughts about love and Silver and the good in darkness. Whatever the case the pall of gloom was gone from his thoughts. They safely transported the chest to their ship with the help of its crew and were sailing through the deep and winding mouth of the island’s river within the hour. 

Yet he still found himself staring at the shrinking island from the quarter deck. 

It was nearly dark and the island was little more than a black blob on a twilight-purple horizon. James mused what they would do with the chest. They would not keep it with them for reasons both practical and for their safety (should anyone get wind they had a large amount of money). They would take what they needed from it and leave the rest intact to be buried elsewhere. 

James would see that it was buried on a _normal_ island, though something gnawed at him from deep within that any island he placed it on would become haunted. 

Thomas joined him by the railing. He stood straight and tall, though he no longer clasped his hands behind his back like the proper gentleman he had been. James much preferred Thomas’s hands around the railing in front of him instead, looking out onto the horizon deep in thought. 

He was studying Thomas now instead of the island. 

At last Thomas turned to him. Wordlessly he stepped up behind James and wrapped his arms around James’s waist. James easily folded his arms over his lover’s and leaned into the touch. 

“My sad lieutenant,” Thomas said very quietly, lips on his neck. 

James smiled softly. “It will pass. It always does when you are near.” 

“And not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for it,” said Thomas. “But if you ever need to talk about him, good or bad, I am here.” 

James startled. Had his thoughts really been that transparent? He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. It was the most he could manage. They stayed on the quarter deck until nightfall. Then Thomas bade him come below deck and out of the cold. James took one final look at Skeleton Island, then turned towards the warmth that awaited him inside.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if this story was James trying to work out his feelings about Silver or me trying to work out mine, or a bit of both, because the further away we get from the finale the more conflicted I am, lol. I really wanted Thomas on the island as a sort of backdrop and support for James, and a location so steeped in emotional trauma and violence for James, as well as superstition seemed like a good place for James's (read: my) feels to come to the surface a bit.


End file.
